


The Runaway

by god_awful_mormon



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Homeworld (Steven Universe), Pearl Swap Theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 14:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15664791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/god_awful_mormon/pseuds/god_awful_mormon
Summary: On Era 1 Homeworld, the pearls belonging to Pink Diamond and White Diamond form an unlikely friendship. But when Pink's pearl starts to get strange ideas about abandoning her purpose, their lives are turned upside down. We can only hope she comes to her senses before she makes things worse for herself.





	The Runaway

The first few years were not so bad. A little lonely, maybe, because our pearl’s job was to write down the activities of the others and report back to her Diamond, so not only were yellow, blue, and pink nervous around her, but so were Yellow, Blue and Pink – even the other Diamonds feared White. As a general trend, at least at first, they all became stiff and unnatural when she was around and talked to one another in whispers. But eventually, to her surprise, pink began warming up to her. She had never experienced warmth and kindness before, and she rewarded it by starting to let things slide.

One day, she and pink were standing around and talking about nothing important, politics and so on, when pink’s Diamond called out to her, demanding that she come to her at once. pink rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. With a start, she realized what she had done. She cringed and glanced at our pearl, waiting. But instead of pulling up her note screen, our pearl shook her head and put her hand to her mouth to indicate keeping a secret. She didn’t know why she did it, but the way pink looked at her afterward made her want to do it more.

pink got away with more and more after that, from subtle disrespect, to flagrant disrespect, until at some point she started coming to our pearl to vent her frustrations. She would approach, say something like “I had such an interesting conversation with my Diamond today,” and our pearl would wave her note screen away and gestured with her hand to her mouth so she would know she could speak freely. Of course, our pearl never complained about her own Diamond, but we always tolerate more immorality in our friends than in ourselves.

At one point, Pink Diamond became convinced that her pearl was hiding her things around her room. Nobody believed her. Blue and Yellow told her she wouldn’t lose things so often if she kept her room tidy. The pearls expressed sympathy toward pink for being unfairly blamed. Our pearl reported back to White on Pink’s tantrums. But then she walked in on pink tucking her Diamond’s communicator into an alcove behind the mirror. pink gave her a meaningful look. She hesitated for a moment, then nodded and put a hand to her mouth. This, too, went unreported, despite our pearl feeling great worry and inner turmoil over it.

These anecdotes make it sound like a one-sided friendship. That is merely a byproduct of keeping our story focused and concise. If we had more time and space, we could talk about the jokes they cracked in low voices during meetings trying to get each other to laugh, or how pink would try to cover for her or even take the blame whenever White became angry over some perceived offense. Time being what it is, we must skip ahead.

One night, while trailing behind the Diamonds on the way back from a court session, pink tapped our pearl on the shoulder and gestured for her to trail even further behind.

When they were at a sufficient distance, pink whispered, “meet me on Pink Diamond’s balcony tomorrow night, after she leaves for training.”

“What for?” our pearl whispered back at a marginally louder volume.

“Ssshhhhh. I’m getting out of here. I want you to come with me.”

“What?” our pearl asked, still quietly, but now with vocalization.

“Shush! Listen. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I have a plan. Tomorrow is the perfect moment. Yellow, Blue, and Pink Diamond will all be gone. They don’t expect me to come along. White will assume you’re off keeping tabs on the lessons. It will be ages before they realize we’re gone.”

“Where would we go?” our pearl whispered incredulously.

“Short term? Down to the hangar. Steal a ship. After that, we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want.”

“So you’re abandoning your purpose.”

“Yes.” pink cracked a smile. “Are you in?”

“No!” Our pearl’s objection was loud enough that the others up ahead of them could hear. Blue glanced back and frowned at them for falling behind. They scurried to catch up.

As they walked close behind the Diamonds, pink gave our pearl a meaningful look, and our pearl put a hand to her mouth.

The next night, pink was nowhere to be found. Our pearl had managed not to say anything up to that point, but when White questioned her, she broke.

White sent out an alert and within minutes pink was apprehended on the grounds below Pink’s room by two agates. She was dragged, fighting her captors the whole way, to White’s room, where our pearl, blue, yellow, Blue, Yellow, and Pink were all waiting out of morbid curiosity to see her shattered.

And she really would have been shattered, if someone hadn’t stepped forward and pleaded on her behalf.

It wasn’t our pearl. Perhaps it should have been. It certainly would have made for a better story. But it was actually Pink Diamond.

“Very well, Starlight,” said White Diamond, cutting off an impassioned argument that she hadn’t been listening too. “But something must be done. You clearly haven’t been keeping your pearl well-trained. I will take her under my wing and fix her up for you. You may have her back when I believe she is ready. In the meantime, I will give you my pearl.”

pink looked like she might have preferred being shattered. Our pearl wasn’t relishing the prospect either.

Pink Diamond reluctantly agreed to the terms.

Just before the swap was made, White gave our pearl her final order in a low voice: “Just try to keep her happy and occupied.” She then set her down next to Pink with a disdainful “Do try not to break her.”

Life went on. Our pearl didn’t necessarily relish her new assignment. She had found Pink annoying before the swap, and working for her didn’t change that. It was relaxing, admittedly, to be out from under the watchful eye of White Diamond. But she just hoped pink would learn her place soon so that everything would go back to normal.

One night, as she was tidying Pink’s room, she heard a noise from the balcony. She went to investigate and found pink clambering over the railing.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, although she was secretly pleased to see her. White had been keeping her new pearl busy for the most part, and the two and hardly spoken since the swap.

“I know you refused before,” pink began, “but I wanted to give you another chance.. Let’s get out of here --”

“No!”

“Please, come with me, we could travel the galaxy, come on --”

“I’m not going and neither are you. You will get in so much trouble and I – I’ll have to report it to White Diamond if you go.”

pink’s face turned cold. “Then I’m not going, after all.”

“Then I have nothing to report.”

pink climbed back down the way she came up and our pearl went back to her cleaning. Later that night, she heard the unsurprising news that pink had been caught sneaking down the stairwell to the hangar.

It was never clear what punishment White had arranged for this second escape attempt. But it was three days before our pearl saw pink again.

When she did see her, it was at a meeting between Blue, Yellow, and Pink Diamond. pink had been sent to take notes for White. From the moment she walked into the room, she seemed different. Her stride was rushed and oddly timed, and her eyes were focused on the ground. Her hands were shaking slightly as she summoned her note screen. And when our pearl pulled a face at her after a particularly inane comment from Pink Diamond, pink only stared in response before returning to her notes.

The more our pearl noticed these strange behaviors, the more she felt queasy just looking at pink. But she also saw a silver lining. Now, it seemed, the end was in sight. Soon they would swap back and everything would return to normal.

But that very night, as she was imagining stories for Pink to keep her occupied (Blue and Yellow were busy and did not want to be disturbed), a tap could be heard from the window. This startled Pink, who asked our pearl to check if anything was out there. Our pearl went to the window and leaned out.

And there was pink, standing on a ledge below her.

She gave our pearl a meaningful look and gestured down to the courtyard. Our pearl gaped at her and shook her head. pink looked up with pleading eyes. Our pearl gave backwards jerk of her head, indicating Pink Diamond standing close behind her. pink shrugged.

“What is it, pearl?” Pink asked.

“Still looking, my Diamond,” our pearl called over her shoulder.

pink projected an imagination of our pearl talking to Pink, apparently giving some excuse, making her way down to the courtyard, meeting up with pink, and the two of them running off together.

Our pearl, with her hands hanging down through the window so that Pink couldn’t see, brought her left hand down in a chopping motion onto her closed right fist, which she splayed out in a bursting motion. A common gesture for shattering. No projection necessary.

pink gave her a grim, stubborn look. Our pearl gave back the same look, but meant different things by it.

She withdrew from the window and returned to Pink. “No monsters out there, my Diamond, don’t worry,” she announced, which wasn’t a lie. “Now, where were we?”

Soon, rumors began circulating that pink had been caught trying to sneak past the guards outside the entrance to the hangar.

It was thirty days before our pearl saw pink again.

When she finally did see her, it was at a court session. In those days, White would occasionally make an appearance in court to deal with some of the trickiest cases, and this was one of those occasions. White was talking at her pearl as she entered the room, and pink, trailing behind her, was responding in the expected matter – “yes, my Diamond”, “right you are, my Diamond” and so on – and our pearl was overjoyed to finally hear that familiar voice again, so she turned her head to see her, and had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. blue and yellow reacted in turn when they saw it, yellow instinctively recoiling before steading herself against her desk and blue pursing her lips to swallow a gasp. Pink Diamond let out a yelp.

There was, as you already know, a scar running across pink’s head, down through where her eye used to be, and it was branching and terrifying like a crack on a gem.

White brought the court to order immediately, before anyone had the change to comment on the condition of her pearl.

Our pearl kept trying to catch pink’s gaze, just to exchange a few glances and see if she was okay, but she never looked up from her notes. Our pearl couldn’t even discern from her expression whether her eye was hurting her. She resigned herself to waiting until the end of the day to talk to her.

But when the work day ended and the Diamonds and pearls began to file out of the room, and she and pink fell to the back of the group as per their usual habit as if nothing had changed, our pearl found herself at a loss for questions. Suddenly, “does it hurt?” seemed too insensitive, “how did it happen?” too forward, “how have you been?” too disingenuous. She started to wonder if the injury was merely superficial, or if part of pink’s mind had been lost too, and if so, how much of her personality remained, and what did she still remember? Caught up in these worries, our pearl walked next to pink in silence, until pink grabbed her by the arm, stopping her short, and gestured down a corridor branching off to their right.

“Last chance,” said pink, quiet enough for the others not to hear. “Come with me.”

For the second time that day, our pearl clamped a hand over her mouth. “You can’t be serious,” she whispered once she had recovered from the shock.

“We can make it this time.” pink was acting like herself, mostly, but there was something different about her. Her remaining eye was wide and darting about; her movements were jerky. She was behaving a bit like an organic lifeform that was trapped or had sustained physical damage. “I know we can. We can get past the guards... if we just...”

“No, no, no, no, no, no.” Our pearl shook her head back and forth and stared at the ground, trying not to think of the nightmarish things White might do to pink next. “When they catch you --”

“They won’t catch me.”

“They’ve caught you three times already--”

“But they might not if we’re together!” pink took our pearl’s hands in hers. Our pearl looked up from the ground and met her gaze, taking in her pleading good eye and her monstrous scar. “Please. This is the only way for me. We can go together.” Tears began to well up in her good eye and her whisper took on a thick, wobbly tone. “I don’t want to be alone. Please. Don’t make me go alone.”

Our pearl ripped her hands out of pink’s. “Then don’t go. pink.”

Without another word, pink started off down the side corridor. Before rounding a corner, she gave a last look back over her shoulder.

Our pearl put a hand to her mouth to indicate keeping a secret.

Soon afterward, White noticed pink was missing. She called our pearl to her to ask her about it. “Where is my pearl?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” our pearl said. “Well – that is to say – I believe she was going to, I mean.” She gulped. “If I remember correctly. She was going to fetch, an, um...”

White stared down at her.

Our pearl cowered. “I – I believe she said… she… needed to, ah…”

White raised an eyebrow.

Our pearl hung her head. “She ran away again.”

The alert went out just in time. pink had managed to sneak past the guards outside the hangar. When the quartzes learned she was on the loose, a few of them went inside to check for her, and she was snatched directly off of the gangplank to a small starship. Another moment, and she would have been gone.

It was three hundred days before our pearl saw pink again. Or at least, some image or remnant of pink. It wasn’t a pleasant reunion.

 

* * *

 

Of course, Steven tried to heal her. When Pearl realized what he was doing, she tried to call out and stop him, but it was too late. He brought his saliva-covered hand down on White’s pearl’s gem. A flicker ran down her body, but nothing else happened. She stared at him and produced no reaction. Then, alarm bells began to sound in the distance.

Pearl thought she’d better grab Steven and start running toward the ship, but she stood there a moment instead. There was something wrong about the way White’s pearl had flickered. It hadn’t just been her constructed form, but her gem, too. A small detail, but one that Pearl noticed. It shouldn’t have happened that way. She stood and stared at White’s pearl, puzzling.

“Pearl!” Steven shouted, running toward her. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I think we’d better run!”

“Just a minute, Steven,” Pearl said, absently patting his arm. She slowly approached White’s pearl.

“Pearl? What are you doing?”

Pearl didn’t respond. She drew her spear and sliced cleanly through the pearl in front of her. She poofed instantly, leaving no gem behind. A moment later, she began to reform in the same place. But she didn’t form out of a solid ball of light. It was more like a stream of particles coming in from her left, seeming to drag themselves against some unseen force.

To White’s pearl’s left lay a dimly lit corridor. “This way!” Pearl exclaimed, taking off running.

“Pearrrrrl!” Steven called out as he ran after her. “The ship is the other way!”

White’s pearl followed as well, gliding effortlessly alongside Pearl. “Don’t go snooping, now,” she said calmly in White’s voice. “White Diamond will make you very sorry if you do.”

They came to an intersection. Pearl swung at White’s pearl again with her spear. This time, she managed to dodge twice, but Pearl caught her on the third try, and as she reformed, the source of the light seemed to be straight ahead. Pearl took off running again, with White’s pearl and Steven keeping pace.

White’s pearl was growing angry now. “I’m warning you,” she snapped in a voice that made Pearl flinch. “Stop this immediately.”

They came to chamber with several rooms branching off. Once again, Pearl stabbed at White’s pearl, but this time the other pearl was ready. Just as the spear was about to go through her, she disappeared entirely and reappeared several meters away.

“What?” Pearl cried out.

“Oh, this?” White’s pearl laughed wickedly. “Just a little admin override.” Pearl came at her again, and once again she disappeared and reappeared, this time on the other side of the chamber. “Sorry to not play fair, but I think it’s time to bring an end to this little game.”

Pearl ran at her again. White’s pearl disappeared and reappeared on the ceiling. Pearl threw her spear, and just as it was about to hit, White’s pearl was back on the ground.

“How depressing that you’re still trying,” the pearl said. “Luckily, we have ways to fix that around here. Now, the guards will be here to apprehend you momentarily, so I suggest you --” She couldn’t finish that thought, as Steven’s shield had sliced through her from behind.

“Oh, well done, Steven!” Pearl exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

“Now will you tell me what’s going on?” Steven asked. “How come she can teleport? What are we looking for?”

White’s pearl began to reform, and the beads of light seemed to be coming from one of the doors to their right.

“Just a minute,” Pearl said quietly. She went to the door and slowly opened it.

The room was unlit, but in the light from the outer chamber they could see that it was empty except for a narrow stone pedestal with a crystalline box on top. Inside the box, something was rattling around. Pearl took a tentative step inside.

White’s pearl grabbed Pearl’s hand as she tried to enter. “Oh no you don’t,” she said, still in her Diamond’s unnervingly steady voice.

Pearl jerked her hand back and continued into the room.

At that moment, White’s pearl’s entire demeanor changed. She took Pearl by the arm, dragged her out the door, and threw her so that she slammed into the opposite wall.

“Pearl!” Steven cried out.

Pearl picked herself up and rushed White’s pearl with her spear. White’s pearl responded by disappearing, reappearing behind her, and slamming her to the ground.

Steven’s first instinct was to help fight, but after evaluating the situation, he decided on a better course of action. Leaving Pearl to fight the losing battle, he snuck into the room and retrieved the crystalline box. After bringing it into the light, it became clear that the item inside was a bright pink pearl. Unlike every other gem he had seen without a body around it, this one moved as if it had a life of its own, bumping against the sides of the box like it was trying to escape.

When the pearls saw him with the box, they both reacted strongly and immediately.

“No!” White’s pearl cried out, running at him.

“Steven!” Pearl yelled. “Open the box!”

Steven had never experienced such high levels of stress as he did at that moment, trying to figure out how the crystalline box opened in the fraction of a second before the uncanny, overpowered pearl came down on top of him.

She appeared next to him and raised a hand to strike him. He found the seam between the lid and the base of the box and popped it open. Their was a flash of pink light as the gemstone flew out of the box and into the pearl with enough force to knock her back.

As the light dissipated, they saw her fall forward onto her hands and knees. Color radiated out from her gem, and her skin and clothes turned from various grays to various shades of pink. When the tint reached her extremities, she lifted her hand and slowly wiggled her fingers, as if amazed that she could control them.

Louder alarms bells sounded now, and footsteps could be heard coming down the hallway toward them.

Pearl walked over to the gem on the ground. She hesitated, not knowing what to say.

The pearl looked up. Her eye was still broken, but they could work on that later. Her good eye held a look of recognition. “...white?”

Pearl extended a hand to help her up. “There’s no time to explain,” she explained, “but we’re about to leave the planet. Come with me.”

The footsteps were getting closer. Steven hopped from foot to foot. “Pearl, we have to go now.”

Our pearl stood with her hand outstretched and waited to see if pink would trust her.


End file.
